Yule
by moonmama
Summary: Happy, fluffy holiday goodness, with a dash of adventure, a pinch of angst and brooding, and a fair amount of romance. NineRose.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I did do a bit of research for this, but make no claims of real historical accuracy.

P.S. - I'm still working on _The Trouble With Mickey_, just taking a brief detour here for a holiday-related quickie. This was intended to be a oneshot, but since I came up with the idea a mere week before Yule and I write far too slowly to have it completed in time, I'm splitting it into two parts so as to post at least some of it before the holidays. No more than two chapters, I promise.

- + - + - +

_**Hag**__: The hag is a fairy from the British Isles. She is said to be the traces of the most ancient goddesses. The hag is regarded as the personification of winter. In the winter months she is usually old and very ugly looking. At the change of the season, she becomes more and more beautiful and younger._

- + - + - +

_Proper footwear_, Rose thought, was never a thing to be underestimated.

No, for walking through a darkened, snowy wood at 6:00 in the morning with only moonlight to see by, well, trainers were simply not adequate. Something waterproof would be a vast improvement. Waterproof _and_ insulated sounded like a slice of heaven just now.

She was doing her best to focus on the numbness of her feet, which would – hopefully – serve to distract her from the painful tingling in her fingers and her increasingly cold and wet trousers. Not to mention the fact that she had been up all night and was ready to topple over from exhaustion.

And then there was the matter of the trickle that was emerging from her nose.

She made a mental note to keep some tissues on hand in the future.

She caught sight of the Doctor up ahead, ran a few steps to catch up, and was reminded once again of the difficulty of running in two-foot deep snow. She slowed again and cried out, "Doctor, wait!" for what seemed like the thousandth time.

He did not respond, for what also seemed like the thousandth time, but plodded on single-mindedly, like a man possessed.

Transfixed. Intoxicated. Controlled, perhaps.

_Controlled_, was precisely what she suspected was happening to him.

- + - + - +

_Somewhere near Deva Victrix, Britannia, 280 A.D., nine hours earlier_

The door to the TARDIS squeaked open as Rose emerged, followed closely by the Doctor.

They stood and surveyed their surroundings. It was a dark, clear and cold night with the moon shining brightly overhead, reflecting onto the snow on the ground. They were in the middle of what appeared to be a small village of crudely-built homes. The village was surrounded by woods.

"A good time," Rose muttered to herself as she pulled her hood over her head and buttoned her jacket. "I asked for a good time, as in 'a few beers down the pub' or 'nightclub dancing till 3 in the morning with a dark-haired Spaniard named Ramon.' Instead, he gives me Sherwood Forest at the full moon after a blizzard."

"You wanted a good time, I'll give you a good time, Rose. Try opening your mind for once in your life," replied the Doctor.

"So what's this, then?" she asked. Her unspoken words still came across loud and clear: _What's so fun about a night in the freezing-cold snowy woods with no central heat or plumbing?_

"Bit of a festival," replied the Doctor. As if to prove his point, they suddenly spotted a group of revellers who had just come round the corner into the centre of the village. Some were singing, a few had fiddles, and all of them had clearly been imbibing in some rather potent drink.

Rose noticed that some of the men had antlers tied on their heads. "Is that the medieval equivalent of wearing a lampshade on your head?" she asked, nodding in the general direction of the revellers.

"It's the Horn Dance," the Doctor replied, terribly pleased with himself. "They're trying to coax the sun to return."

Rose looked at him blankly, prompting him to elaborate. "It's the Solstice," he explained, and when she failed to look even a little more cognisant, he continued, "longest night of the year? When the darkness is at its peak. These people are farmers. They depend on the sun. They've watched the days grow colder and shorter for the past six months and now's the day that everything turns round. It's a time of tremendous celebration and hope."

Rose watched as the group of revellers knocked on the door to one of the houses. The door opened, and the group proceeded to perform, some of them playing fiddles, some singing, some dancing, to the family standing at the door.

"Is that like Christmas carolling?" Rose asked.

"Where do you think the tradition came from?" replied the Doctor. "Oh, and by the way, it's not medieval times yet, you're over a century too early."

Rose shot an annoyed glance back at him and asked, "So do we just go and join them? Is this the 'good time' we've come for?"

"Yeah, it is," he replied with a silly grin. "Go on, you might even recognise some of the songs," he egged her on.

"Aren't you coming too?" she asked.

"Oh, I'll be along. Just going to have a look around first."

The Doctor set off armed with the sonic screwdriver while Rose complied, hesitantly at first, and started over towards the group of revellers. As she approached, her eyes met with one from the group, a man in his twenties or so, who was engaged in the act of dancing a dance with two of his cohorts that vaguely resembled a jig. As he saw her approaching, he reached out towards her, linked arms and swung her into the dance at top speed.

She stumbled through, utterly failing in her efforts to pretend she knew the dance, but nobody seemed to notice (or, more likely, they didn't care), and a few minutes later, she stood facing her partner, out of breath, and laughing in merriment.

"And who might you be, lady?" asked the man, whose longish dark hair and stubble would've made him a perfect fit on _Survivor_. "I haven't seen you round these parts before."

"Rose," she replied. "I'm a...I'm just passing through."

"A flower with hair like gold and some _very_ fetching clothes from a strange land," he observed, eyeing her up and down. "Well, Rose, I'm Emsley, please come and have a drink and another dance with us."

- + - + - +

And in the end, the Doctor was right, of course. Rose could hardly remember when she'd had more fun.

Once the group had completed serenading all the houses in the village, they spent the following hours round a sizeable bonfire at the edge of town. The scene was, in many ways, not unlike a particularly wild Christmas party, with a pine tree that had been adorned with crude decorations, bits of metal, and candles. A spicy scent lingered in the air, which the Doctor informed her was incense – frankincense and myrrh, to be specific. The musicians played tirelessly, and the drink flowed endlessly, of which Rose was only too happy to imbibe in, which led to her being quite convinced that she was getting the hang of the dance steps after all.

She wasn't really, though.

The Doctor did not dance, nor did he partake of any beverages, but seemed content to hang back and watch Rose enjoy herself, as he occasionally nibbled on some bread and dried fruit and glanced up at the night sky. Every so often, Rose would make her way over to him and try to entice him into a dance, but infuriatingly, he would not be persuaded.

So Rose continued dancing and drinking amongst the crowd which, by the way, included more than a few young, handsome males, a fact that was not lost on her.

But she was definitely _not_ flirting, she told herself. Nor was she trying to make the Doctor jealous.

And even if she had been trying, it wasn't working.

Until the mistletoe, that is.

It turned out that sprigs of it had been hung from the trees overhead. There was so much of it, in fact, that it was hard to miss once Emsley had pointed it out to her in the midst of one of the slower dances. She had been hesitant at first, unsure if the significance of the green leafy plant was what she knew it to be, but a quick glance around her, revealing the other celebrants sucking each other's faces off, demonstrating conclusively that mistletoe's significance over the years had not changed a bit.

She stole a look over at the Doctor, who seemed for a moment to be watching her with some intensity, but quickly became very interested in a stone stuck to the bottom of his shoe. So with a deep breath and a fleeting thought as to whether she'd had garlic with her lunch earlier, she leant in towards Emsley and their lips met in a warm, sensuous, and very abbreviated kiss.

Rose looked over in the Doctor's direction again and found him looking right at her. The bonfire reflected in his eyes, and she was reminded of the _Superman_ movies she'd seen when Superman shot laser beams from his eyes.

And then somebody was shoving another mugful of drink in her face, and another dance was starting up that involved progressively changing partners, and Rose thought that this evening was shaping up to be very, very interesting.

Infuriatingly, the Doctor continued to give her a wide berth, betraying no dismay at the events except for his very white knuckles on his left hand that clutched the sonic screwdriver.

The dance continued, Rose danced with (and snogged) a progression of men, and the Doctor still steadfastly refused to locate himself anywhere near any of the mistletoe.

And finally Rose decided she was feeling just tipsy and flirtatious enough to go grab him by the hand and pull him, whether he liked it or not, into what had become a snog-fest of massive proportions.

But she never got the opportunity. As she made her way over towards him, the air was suddenly filled with figures swooping down from the sky. After a moment, Rose realised in surprise that there were only three of them, but they circled and dodged the revellers in mid-air at a pace that was entirely inhuman, making it seem like they numbered in the dozens.

Dozens of _what_, Rose was not sure, but as one of the figures hurtled directly towards her, forcing her to duck in order to avoid being smashed head-on, she was able to make out a shrivelled face and hooked nose underneath a black cape and hood.

_Witches_, she thought. Or hags, and suddenly wondered if the Doctor could have mixed up his holidays.

It wouldn't be the first time he'd made such a mistake, she thought.

_tbc_


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Yes, I know Christmas is over, but better late than never…

- + - + - +

The first strange thing Rose noticed about the hags – apart from their very presence at a Yule celebration – was that nobody else seemed surprised to see them. The partiers regarded them almost _reverently_, Rose thought, watching them dart about madly as they swooped in and out between the partygoers who were continuing with their dancing, drinking, singing and snogging as if this were the most normal thing in the world.

She glanced wildly about, unable to locate the Doctor. She looked up at her current dance partner, a particularly good-looking, blue-eyed partygoer by the name of Kyne. "What are they?" she demanded of him.

He seemed surprised at her ignorance, but answered graciously. "Goddesses," he said, and his voice seemed to be coming from a million miles away, or perhaps from Heaven itself. "It is Yule. They will be reborn." he explained.

Despite his obvious ardour, Rose did not find his answer in the least bit illuminating. She continued frantically looking for the Doctor, and finally spotted him at the edge of the wood, hanging back a good distance from the crowd. She excused herself and quickly made her way over to him where she found him scanning away at the creatures with the sonic screwdriver, looking rather curious, yet not in the least bit bothered by the scene facing them.

"Am I the only one here who's alarmed at the presence of _hags_ at a Christmas celebration?" she asked him sardonically.

He continued scanning and did not look at her. "Oh, so you're interested, now, are you?" he asked, a look of impatient bemusement about him, as if she were a dog who he'd just pulled away from an interesting scent. "Wouldn't want to drag you away if you've got better things to do. Exercising your mouth and all that."

"You're the one who told me to have a good time," she replied indignantly.

"I did," he agreed, nodding. "And I am _most_ gratified to see you following my instructions to the letter. I assume this will continue going forward then?" He paused as he changed settings on the screwdriver, muttering, "Non-corporeal, self renewing, traces of cesium." He looked up at her in surprise. "Pixiwids, that's what they are."

"You've seen them before?" Rose asked.

"Never," the Doctor replied. "Only heard stories. From what I can tell, it looks to be time for their renewal cycle. Incredibly short life spans, they have for such intelligent creatures. One year, they've got, that's all, and then they self-procreate. Almost like a metamorphosis, except that the result is a completely new creature."

"So why are they here darting about at some ancient festival?" Rose asked.

"Renewal cycle," the Doctor repeated. "They feed on brain wave energy, and they need a measure of it for their rebirth. Perfect synergy when you think about it."

"Synergy?" Rose asked.

"All those inebriated, incense-soaked brains here, just the thing they need. A quick top-up should give them a nice jumpstart to the process."

"And it's harmless to humans?" Rose asked sceptically.

"Worst that might happen is a slight headache in the morning, but by the look of things, you'll have that anyway," he replied, one eyebrow raised sternly at her.

"I didn't drink _that_ much," Rose replied indignantly. "Don't you have better things to worry about than my alcohol intake?"

"As a matter of fact, no. Not right now," the Doctor replied with a smirk. "Look," he said nodding towards the crowd. "They've started."

They watched in silence as the Pixiwid creatures started swooping down on the partygoers one by one, and passing through them in true ghostlike fashion, as if they were simply clouds of coloured mist.

"Why haven't they come over here?" Rose asked.

"They just haven't noticed us yet," the Doctor replied, and was immediately proven right when one of the hags hurtled directly towards Rose's face at a breakneck speed. Rose tried to duck, but wasn't fast enough, and was greeted by the sight of an apparition with a hooked nose covered in warts, being absorbed into her brain.

Instantly Rose felt like she'd been plunged under water as she felt the creature pass through her, and then, quick as it had come, it was over and she was watching the hag race towards the Doctor.

It passed through him just as quickly, and then swooped back toward the crowd as they both watched.

Rose still had one question nagging at her. "So they're not aliens, then?" she asked. "They've always been here?"

"Oh, they're aliens all right," he replied with a shake of his head, as if waking up from a nap. "Legend says they disappeared thousands of years ago from their home planet on some sort of religious quest, I think it was. They must've been stranded here ever since."

Rose was about to ask why they couldn't get back, but she noticed that the creatures had stopped their swooping and were gathering together at the edge of the wood, hovering above the trees. "Doctor, look!" she cried, pointing at them.

The metamorphosis had begun They watched as the hags transformed in a matter of seconds. The lines on their faces smoothed out, their hooked noses retracted, and their grey, wiry hair grew out thicker and regained a variety of vibrant colours. Rose saw how they could be taken for goddesses, or fairies, at the very least. They hovered in the air, each one with a pair of sparkling wings and long, lush hair, giving off a light that glittered in every brilliant colour. Rose could see where the idea of fairy dust came from.

They were possibly the loveliest creatures she had ever seen.

The Pixiwids started to retreat back towards the woods, while the crowd, who had momentarily paused to gape at the rebirth, resumed their merrymaking , picking right up where they had left off with a new jig, another round of drinks, and a new set of dance partners.

Considering all the activity, it was really no wonder that Rose was the only one who noticed when one of the creatures lunged over towards the Doctor, who was still standing with her at the periphery of the woods, well away from the rest of the mass of partiers over by the bonfire.

Rose barely had time to register what was happening before a beam of light brighter than a laser opened up from the fairy's eyes and aimed directly at the Doctor. He was immediately frozen in place, eyes closed, face pointed upwards with an expression that, oddly enough, was not at all distressed.

No, the look on his face embodied the very opposite of distress.

_Reverent bliss_, was really the best way to describe it, Rose thought.

This was not in the least bit reassuring. "Doctor?" she cried anxiously. "Doctor, what's happening? What are they doing to you?"

He did not reply, but instead started moving like a man possessed, following the creatures away from the crowd and straight into the snowy woods.

"Doctor, where are you going?" Rose asked as she turned to follow him, muttering a stream of swear words as she plunged into the deep snow after him.

- + - + - +

Two hours. At least.

For two very, very long and _cold_ hours, Rose had plodded along through the snow in pursuit of the Doctor. She called his name every so often, but he was completely oblivious to everything around him except the hags-turned-fairy-goddesses who were leading him onward.

Leading him _where_, she still had no clue.

Surprisingly, probably due to the hard work of trudging through two feet of snow, her body was not entirely freezing. Her extremities, however, were another matter. With each numb and painful step, she was increasingly aware of how unlikely she was to make it back without any frostbitten toes.

She looked up ahead and was startled to realise that the large mound she'd spotted some ways back was not, in fact, a rock; it was a crude-looking shack. As she neared it and got a better look, she guessed that it had not been lived in for some time.

It was at this point that she tripped over a tree root and fell down, landing on her left hip. Hard.

She cried out in pain, but the Doctor continued to turn a deaf ear to her voice. She lay on the ground, rubbing her injury as she watched him disappear ahead into the woods. She could feel the cold seeping through her clothes from her ankles, up her legs and all the way up her back..

She considered taking shelter in the shack and starting a fire, but after a few moments, the pain subsided enough to allow her to get up and limp along slowly. So she set about following the Doctor's footprints in the snow, hoping and praying that this accursed journey would conclude very soon.

About ten minutes later, it looked like she was going to get her wish, when she came upon a clearing in the middle of the wood, where the Doctor and the Pixiwids had stopped.

Rose crouched behind a rock, sensing instinctively that her presence at this gathering was not welcome, and secretly observed what happened next. The area was alive with the activity of the fairies circling and dancing. As they flew, the fairy dust spread about in every colour and lay on the snow, glittering in the moonlight. The Doctor stood in the middle of it all, still in his trance, gaping at the sight. The only sound was the whooshing of the flying figures as they passed.

And then Rose saw with a surprise, that the sun was starting to peek over the horizon, turning the eastern sky a hundred shades of red, orange and yellow, and she gasped at the beauty of the scene in front of her.

Then she saw that something was happening. The figures appeared to be converging in a semicircle round the Doctor's spellbound figure, and she realised with a start that there were only nine of them; their numbers had seemed much greater when they had been darting wildly about.

She felt for a moment like she was watching a real, living fairy tale as the nine creatures hovered, radiating glittering light towards the Doctor.

And then they all aimed a single, tiny, brightly lit finger at him, and Rose could see nine beams of..._something_ connecting each of them to the Doctor. Rose become conscious of the fact that the beams were, in fact, emanating _from_ the Doctor, and not vice versa.

The look on his face was rapture, oblivious as ever to his surroundings, completely captivated with these creatures and whatever it was that they wanted from him which apparently he was only too happy to provide. The lines in his face, deepened by the weight of the universe that he willingly carried every day, had softened and eased. Rose caught a glimpse in his eyes and almost didn't recognise him; the shadows of a million deaths that always lurked there were gone. Instead, she saw eternity. Hope.

She fell to her knees in awe.

Still, she remained behind the rock, still unsure of the creatures' intent, unsure if she should intervene, unable to come up with any sort of plan of how she could help even if she should. She was unaccustomed to this sort of indecision, and it made her feel even more ineffectual and insignificant next to the dazzling sight in front of her.

She felt like a useless shop girl again.

And then, suddenly, the fairy-goddess-creatures moved together, seeming to merge into one tiny beam of light, and flitted up into the night sky, leaving a tiny trail of sparkling light behind them, and then they were gone.

The Doctor collapsed onto the ground, his fall cushioned only by the snow.

Rose emerged from behind the rock and ran over to him. "Doctor, are you all right?" she asked frantically as she knelt down next to him and gently slapped his cheek in an effort to wake him up.

He was beginning to stir. "So short," he murmured. "Blink of an eye and they're gone." His eyes opened with a gaze that had the zest and hunger of a man who's been fasting for a month and has just been given a single, small taste of something unspeakably delicious.

And then he did the very last thing she expected. He reached up, cradled her face in his hands and pulled her down into a kiss, rough and heavy, both of them panting for air, his tongue thrusting forcefully into her mouth.

Rose recoiled out of surprise and uncertainty. She pulled back, but this only made him grab her harder as he crushed his lips against hers. She could barely breathe.

So she pushed him away. Hard.

And instantly regretted it when she saw the wounded look on his face, as if she'd stabbed him in both hearts at once. The change from the look of rapture that had encompassed his face a few moments earlier made her feel like she'd been punched in the gut.

"Sorry," he muttered, and his blue eyes had gone hard and impervious and she knew better than to press the issue just then.

"Are you all right?" she asked delicately.

"Course I am," he replied as he got to his feet. He turned to scan their surroundings as if seeing them for the first time, and Rose thought he looked rather like someone who'd woken from a particularly pleasant dream only to find himself faced with a large pile of dirty laundry.

He took a deep breath. "Harmless, just like I told you," he said.

"_Harmless_?" she demanded, incredulous. "Hypnotising you into following them miles into a snowy wood at night is _harmless_?"

He didn't respond, as he was looking Rose up and down in her trainers and soaking-wet trousers and hoodie which she'd bundled as tightly as she could round her head, with the sleeves pulled over her hands. "Blimey, Rose, aren't you cold?" he asked.

"Lost the feeling in my feet some time back," she confirmed, more than a bit annoyed. "Wrenched my hip too."

"Rose," he chided, "what were you thinking?" He removed his jacket and slung it over her shoulders.

"I was thinking," she replied through gritted teeth, "that you were hypnotised, being controlled, _whatever_, by some aliens in the form of goddess-fairies that were taking you with them to God-knows-where to do God-knows-what with you and if you think for one second that I would ever just stand by and let that happen for fear of catching a paltrylittle_ cold_, well, you're a lot stupider than I ever thought possible."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow of consternation at her but did not reply. He knelt down in front of her, aimed the sonic screwdriver at her right foot and she heard a whir. Immediately her foot was flooded with a feeling of delicious warmth.

"That's brilliant," she sighed contentedly.

He repeated this on the other foot, then stood up and looked at her sternly. "That's only temporary, we still need to get you someplace warm. Can you walk?"

"Slowly," she replied. "What about you? Aren't you cold?" she asked.

"Cold doesn't bother me," he explained as he shielded his eyes from the sun and surveyed their surroundings again. "How far out would you say we are?

"Been walking at least two hours, she replied. "But we passed a shelter only a short way back."

"Then that's where we're going," the Doctor announced.

- + - + - +

Jelly Babies, as it turned out, didn't taste half bad dissolved in hot water.

Rose sat on a crudely-built stool in the shack, in front of the fire that the Doctor had started, using the ample pile of firewood that had been left behind by the former occupants. She had stripped off her wet things and was now huddled under a scratchy blanket they had found in a box, along with some rudimentary dishes. Her clothes were laid by the fire to dry.

Once free of her wet clothes, her next priority was finding something warm to drink. Unfortunately there was no tea or any other such drink to be found, and she did not fancy the prospect of drinking plain, hot water.

She'd thought he was mad when he suggested the Jelly Babies, but eventually conceded that it was better than nothing.

She cupped her hands round the mug, took another sip of the sugary liquid, then wrapped the blanket tightly round her shoulders and looked over at the Doctor, who was pondering in silence as he sat on the stool next to her.

She decided it was time to talk about it.

"Doctor," she began. "Why did you –" she broke off in mid-sentence as he looked at her questioningly. His eyes felt like they were hammering into her, deflating her confidence and she changed tactics. "Why did you go off wandering after those creatures?" she finally asked, silently berating herself for not asking the question she'd really wanted to ask.

He was quiet for so long that she felt like they were back in the woods again, him in his trance, ignoring her very existence.

"They needed my help," he explained finally.

"They couldn't just ask?"

"They did ask," replied the Doctor. "They communicate telepathically. They passed through everyone's mind back there at the bonfire, remember?"

Rose nodded.

"They saw that I was a Time Lord and knew I could help them get home. They'd been stranded here, remember?"

"Get them home? That's what they wanted with you?" she asked.

He nodded.

"But why all they way out here?"

"The time and the place had to be precise," he explained. "When the sun came up this morning - Yule morning, not by coincidence - the sun and their home planet were perfectly aligned with that exact spot. If they'd tried it anywhere else, they might've ended up on Venus or who knows, lost their way out of the galaxy entirely."

"OK," Rose accepted, "but why did you need to slog off without any explanation?" she demanded. "Were they controlling you?"

He pondered for a moment. "Well, some might call it mind control, but it wasn't quite that," he explained.

Rose found this hard to believe, and not a little bit infuriating. "You mean you led me out here in the snow and the freezing cold, ignoring me every time I called your name and you were doing it _by choice_?"

"Not by choice exactly. It wasn't what you'd call 'informed consent'," he back-pedalled.

"You're not making any sense," she groused.

"They dazzled me." His shoulders sagged as he appeared to relent to some inner battle. "Rose, those creatures live for one year. _One year_. And to them, it's fantastic. _Beyond_ fantastic." He was far away for a moment, then he turned to her. "Just think if you only lived for one year. If your whole body, your whole being was designed to live for one year. To cram an entire lifetime into three hundred sixty-five days. A lifetime of highs and lows, sights and sounds. Everything magnified, so as not to miss anything. Just imagine everything you've ever experienced, a hundred times more intense. Dancing, like you were earlier. Joy. Sex. Love. Everything a hundredfold more so."

"Sounds intense," she commented. "But couldn't you have fought it?"

He rolled his eyes and replied, "Haven't you ever done something you knew you might regret, but you just couldn't resist?" he challenged her.

She looked sceptical.

"Like eating chocolate when you're trying to shed weight?"

Rose flushed ever so slightly and began to get it.

"Skipped school to go to the cinema?" he continued to dispute, though he'd already made his point. "Smoked a joint perhaps?"

"Or kissed someone you fancy out of the blue?" she asked, eyebrows raised.

He looked down at the floor. "Something like that, yeah," he replied softly. "It was nice, exhilarating, really, believing, just for a moment, that life really is that short; that I could do what I pleased, have what I wanted, and not worry about the risks afterwards."

Rose realised that he wasn't just referring to the moonlit stroll through the snow, but was answering the question she hadn't dared to ask.

"And then they left, broke the connection, and I –"

Rose cut him off. "And you got a nasty smack-down as a wakeup call, courtesy of yours truly," she said cynically, realising the implications of what she'd done to him. "I'm sorry," she said, knowing how inadequate her words really were.

He shrugged her off. "Brought me back to reality, that's all you did. Somebody had to do it. A little reminder that there are always consequences," he said gently.

Rose slid off her stool and knelt down in front of him. The warmth of the fire felt delicious on her back as she gathered the blanket round her shoulders. "You know, the consequences aren't always as bad as you think," she said, reaching out for his hand that was resting on his knee, and they both knew exactly what she was talking about.

He looked up at her in surprise, then darkened. "The consequences," he replied pointedly, "almost always stretch further and wider than your human existence can imagine." His gaze was steely and armoured and Rose almost backed down, until she noticed the hard throbbing of his double pulse as her fingers traced lines on his hand and up his wrist, and she resolved not to be driven off.

"Sometimes it's worth it," she said, straight to his face, and as she suspected, his icy stare melted immediately, revealing the vulnerability in those eyes of his that had seen his entire planet destroyed in the blink of an eye, and she knew that she had him. She gently pushed her hand under his and twined their fingers together.

He showed no reaction other than a slight tightening of his grasp. Rose took this as encouragement, and reached up to stroke his cheek.

His eyes closed with her touch as he murmured, "and sometimes it's too late either way." Then he opened his eyes again and looked at her directly. "How are the toes feeling?" he asked, and the heat in his eyes belied the seemingly casual question.

She leaned in and touched her lips, feather-soft to his cheek as she whispered, "feeling fine," into his ear. She felt his breath quicken on her shoulder, sending goose bumps down her whole side.

And then he was whispering back to her in turn and she could feel tiny hot puffs on her ear. "And the hip?" he asked.

Slowly, lightly, with her lips she traced a line from his right ear, past the mole on his cheek, and over the roughness on his chin, and his hand that was clutching hers tightened so hard she thought she was going to lose circulation. "Stiff," she replied breathlessly as she pulled her head back to look at him directly. "Just a dull ache, long as I'm not walking on it."

One look at his face left no doubt in her mind as to his intent, but he still made no move to touch her. She pulled her hand out of his grasp and began running her fingers over his scalp, through the short hairs that barely acknowledged her presence, springing right back into place as her hands passed through.

Then he spoke in a voice that was both husky and contemplative as he pressed his head into her touch. "We take it for granted," he mulled. "Time. You'd think that me, a Time Lord of all people, would appreciate it, but so much of it just slips away. Maybe I just get to thinking that it's infinite. I'm so old it almost feels that way."

His hands remained on his lap and she was going to go mad if he didn't make a move with them soon.

"Sounds like you had the mother of all 'carpe diem' moments," she said, placing a soft kiss at the nape of his neck.

His body twitched in what Rose was almost certain was a chuckle. "Those creatures experience life more fully in five minutes than you and I do all day," he reflected.

Rose thought she felt him shiver as she ran a single finger behind his left ear. "That's saying something, considering what our days are like," she supplied, cupping a hand on either side of his head as she brushed her lips at the corners of his mouth.

And then he reached up with one finger and began slowly tracing her collarbone, and Rose's knees went so weak that she had to grasp his knee to prevent from falling over. He took her hand in his, lifted it up, twining their fingers together and laid a soft kiss on her index finger.

The look in his eyes was untamed lightning and fire and Rose wondered if she could burn up from his gaze alone, and thought it might just be worth it.

He released his grasp on her hand and lifted her up onto his lap, wrapping her tightly in his embrace, running his hands up and down her back as he worked his way down her neck with his lips. She closed her eyes and revelled in the sensation of his touch, feeling so dizzy she couldn't be sure that they were still sitting upright, or even within Earth's gravity at all.

"Doctor?" Rose whispered breathlessly, quite surprised at her ability to form words, "Tell me what it was like. In the minds of those creatures, I mean."

She gasped as the blanket slid off her shoulders and his fingers slowly traced circles down her arm. "It was intense," he said simply. His hand brushed against the skin of her outer breast and she let out a low moan. "There's really no other way to say it."

He paused and looked up at her, and she could feel their chests rising and falling against each other as they both breathed heavily. "Then show me," she whispered.

And then there was a twinkle in his eye as he said in his most tantalising voice, "You want intense, Rose Tyler? I'll give you intense."

This time she was ready for his kiss, and welcomed him fervently.

- + - + - +

It was a happy Yule indeed.

Some hours later Rose's stomach was signalling the need for them to move on and find some provisions. However her lack of adequate clothing and injured hip made a simple journey on foot impractical. In the end, they decided that the best thing to do would be for the Doctor to go fetch Rose some warm clothes and bandages from the TARDIS and bring them back for her. Rose stayed behind in the cabin, huddled by the fire, wrapped in a blanket.

She was more than a little surprised when, a mere two hours later, she heard jingling outside.

She padded over to the door and opened it, revealing the Doctor, wearing a huge grin on his face, driving a horse-drawn sleigh complete with sleigh bells.

"Where did you get this?" she asked. laughing delightedly.

"From the village. Borrowed from your mate Emsley," he replied. "Thought you might like a ride back in style. Look, it's starting to snow, too."

He was right; light flurries had started falling, and by the look of the sky there was plenty more to come. He tossed her a bundle of clothes and boots, and she went inside, back by the fire to put them on.

She emerged a short time later, fully dressed and having doused the fire, and climbed into the sleigh next to the Doctor, who had unfolded a blanket for her lap. She snuggled in as the horse started pulling them swiftly on their way back to the village and the TARDIS.

"I keep expecting Tiny Tim to poke his head out and say 'God bless us, every one,'" she sighed contentedly.

"You're more than a thousand years early for Dickens" the Doctor reminded her, "but St. Nicholas isn't too far off. I should know, I was there."

"You were not," she denied, giving him a playful shove.

"I was indeed." he assured her. "Bit of trouble with some alien quadrupeds who looked astonishingly like flying reindeer. Was actually my fault when the good St. Nick's bag of alms got hurled down the chimney. He was quite cross with me at the time, but I'd say things worked out in his favour, wouldn't you?"

Rose shook her head and laughed as the jingle of the sleigh bells sang their way back to the village.

"Merry Christmas, Doctor," she said, leaning her head on his shoulder.

"Happy Yule, Rose," he replied.

_fin_


End file.
